


Acerbus Procella

by UlurNaga



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Female Protagonist, Gladiators, Original Character(s), Rivalry, Romance, Slavery, Tevinter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlurNaga/pseuds/UlurNaga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You know so little of your predecessors, puppet.” She hissed, “You and I...we were not his first victims."</i><br/>Fenris finds his world turned upside down and his goals challenged when he encounters Mahk, a cold-hearted former gladiator of the Tevinter Imperium. With a temper as sharp as her blade, he must tread carefully to find the answers he seeks...<br/><i>He is the hurricane, and she the volcano. <b>Let the battle begin.</b></i><br/>Fenris/OC</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acerbus Procella

The Hanged Man was not what one would call a ‘nice’ location, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was dim, rowdy and smelled strongly of stale, humid air and cheap ale. It was a breeding ground for trouble, even when one was not _looking_ for it.

It was, however, an ideal place to hold a weekly card game and drink until blind.

And this was exactly what Garrett Hawke and his crew did.

Despite all the rowdy drunks in the tavern and the damp smell of old sea air, the lot of them were all gathered in Varric’s private corner of the facility in seemingly high spirits; it was Wicked Grace night.

“My turn to deal,” said Isabela, a pouted smirk crossing her features before Anders raised his hands in surrender.

“Then call me out for this round, pirate.” The mage said with a rather teasing wit, “You’re  a bloody cheater.”

The rouge beauty placed a hand to her ample bosom where her heart would have been beneath, “Lies and slander, pet!” she giggled, “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“I would say it’s because you have cards between your tits,” Hawke interjected with a snicker, “I can see the corner.”

“Ugh, alright then, _you_ deal!” she feigned offence by throwing her hands up exasperatedly before sliding the deck beside her to where their mage ‘leader’ was seated and turning to Merrill, “So tell me, kitten; how fares Lowtown?”

The little Dalish mage gave an absent smile and twiddled her fingers daintily around her glass of water, “Fine…I think? My roof has a leak, Varric said he’d help me fix it – but it makes a pretty sound -!”

“Don’t worry, Daisy. I’ll have it sorted.” The dwarf chuckled in that heavy, story-teller’s voice of his. The brotherly fondness in his voice was always very easy to hear, everyone knew he was a little bit protective of the endlessly naïve little elf, “How about another round, people?”

“Well _I’m_ not going to say no to free ale,” Isabela chirped, “even if it _does_ taste a bit like distilled Qunari piss.”

“Oh bloody Maker,” Anders groaned, digging the heel of his palm into his eye with a snort, “did you have to use an analogy like that?”  
The pirate shrugged with more than just a hint of a flirty smirk, “Oh, but I  _did_...I  _really_ did.”

Choosing to leave the table before the discussion nose-dove into sexual lewdness ( _which was inevitable with Isabela partaking_ ) Varric rose from his seat and made his way to the bar, weaving in between the sober and not-so-sober visitors.  
“Corff!” he called to the bartender, “A round of the usual, if you’d be so kind.”

The dwarf shot his most coercive, friendly grin in the hopes of somehow getting his order ahead of the cue. The barkeep nodded and held up a finger, as if to say ‘one moment’ before serving a few barflies who had been waiting, so Varric helped himself to a stool to wait. Most of the patrons were of the usual crowd, but there were always unfamiliar people at different points throughout the evening. Down the edge of the bar was one in particular that he had not seen before.

This in and of itself was strange, because even if Varric didn’t know people by _name_ , he’d at least seen their faces throughout Kirkwall before. This one, however, was completely new.

A woman –elf, specifically– sat silently at the bar by the wall; seemingly ignorant to the rowdy noise going on around her. Her hair was a mass of fat, bound braids tied back with a scrap of leather, the colour stark white at the roots and mid-lengths, grading down to an almost black at the ends.

She was nursing what appeared to be a pint of cheap ale, eyes half-lidded and cast down at the beverage. A very large double-handed axe was propped head-down against the wall next to her, and it was only upon observing it that Varric realised the fingers of her right hand were rested on the handle, as if ready to swing it at a moment’s notice.

He also noticed the way her eyes seemed to flicker away from her beverage every few seconds to observe the surroundings, her fingers occasionally tightening on the end of her weapon. The stranger’s elven features were almost masculine, in a rather petite way that only her kind could pull off and an odd pair of jagged scars, seemingly white in colour, patterned her left eye.

As if she could feel his scrutiny, the elf turned to face him as quickly as it would take one to blink. A trio of parallel lines were struck diagonally across her lip, the highest of which just barely ran across the right side of her nose; a rather intriguing set of scars.

The tale-teller in him suddenly began to fly wild with theories over what could possibly be the origin of that set of mean-looking scars.

  _I bet there’s a story behind those…_

“Here you go, Varric.” Corff suddenly said, interrupting his thoughts with a brisk vacancy the barkeep was known for. The Dwarf placed coin enough for his own pint on the counter and offered a businessman’s smile, the one he used for coercing and bribing, “Put the rest on my tab, my good man.”

“Sure thing, Tethras.” Corff replied simply, “Don’t choke on that piss-for-ale.”

With that the bartender left to go deal with the still-coming drunken crowd, leaving Varric to cast another glance to the strange woman at the end of the bar.

But she was gone.

In her place sat her half-drunken pint of the Hanged Man’s terrible ale, and as he shrugged and headed back with the tray of drinks, he decided that perhaps she’d decided there was better ale to be had elsewhere in Kirkwall; she certainly wouldn’t be wrong in thinking so. Still there was something unsettling about a living being disappearing so quickly and efficiently; with a weapon like that axe she was _certainly_ not a rouge, so the use of stealth seemed unlikely.

“Ah! Varric,” Hawke exclaimed as the dwarf reached the table, taking a pint of ale for himself, “just in time. I was just discussing our next job.”  
“Oh _this_ should be interesting…” the story-teller smirked, taking his seat at the end of the table as everyone reached for the tray in the centre of it.

“There’s a merchant in Hightown market,” Garrett started, folding his gauntleted fingers around his pint and taking a swig, “that posted to the Chanter’s board. There are slavers intercepting his shipments of ‘goods’ he says. I think there’s an underground trade he’s doing that he doesn’t want known. He’s paying for someone to ‘clean up’ the slavers and return his goods.”

“But you’re not buying it, I assume.” Varric said knowingly, leaning back and crossing his arms. Hawke shook his head in response.

“Not for a second. The only reason a merchant want slavers dead, is if they’re stealing _his_ slaves. I say we kill off the slavers, and ‘lose’ the people they’re transporting.” He stopped for a second, his eyes dark; if there was one thing Hawke could not stand, it was slavery. After a moment, he raised his head with his usual comical grin and cheery, sarcastic tone, “So, who’s up for an excursion to the Wounded Coast?”

*

Their trek to the Coast had proved uneventful at best, but upon their arrival things had taken a much more serious turn.

The party, consisting of Hawke, Varric, Anders and Fenris, all outfitted with their weapons and class-appropriate armour for their journey. The problem they were now encountering was that there seemed to be more of the slavers than initially thought, although the fact that there were catacombs of slaver holds in the cliff-faces probably only added to the situation.

Fenris had been taking a little more joy than necessary out of killing the slavers, but that was understandable given his past with them, his hatred ran deep. It was not until Hawke had led them to the cliff face that held the slaver caverns that the group finally stopped walking. There were several different cavern entrances, and Hawke appeared to pause for a time as he contemplated the next plan of action.

“Alright…” he said finally, “Varric, you and Isabela take the central entrance,”  
“Right.” Varric nodded understandingly.

“You got it.” Isabela’s voice rang at the same time as the dwarf’s, and they made their way to the middle tunnel entrance.

“Anders; you have Justice, so go to the left cave. Fenris and I will take the right side tunnel. Everyone stay sharp, we don’t know what-”

“-You go with Anders, Hawke,” Fenris said suddenly, “I know better than any of you how these slavers work; I will go alone.”

The leader stopped for a moment, his staff in hand with a concerned look on his face.

“Are you _certain_ , Fenris?”

“I will be fine.”

The dark haired mage shrugged and offered a mocking smirk, “I’m sure it will be nice to have an absence from your brooding for a while, have fun!”

The elf smirked in the corner of his lip, but otherwise ignored the humour of his comrade; instead he turned away from the group and headed into the caverns. His eyes stared intently for any signs of movement, his ears strained for sounds that might be misplaced. It wasn’t until he was most of the way to the central holding, that it occurred to him that not a single foe had crossed his path in this place. It was almost empty, void of the men they were hunting, and far too vacant to make sense…

Suddenly, there was the screeching sound of metal on metal, like a holding cell door being slammed into its frame. The sound had to be the slavers he was looking for, and in preparation Fenris readied his massive blade as he headed down the corridors.

The sound happened again, and he was closer this time.

*

What the Tevinter elf did not realise was that there was another who stalked the catacombs, on the very same mission as he and his companions had taken. Another of elven descent with braided, heavy hair and a set of interesting scars, the same ones that had found a certain dwarf at a bar wondering their origin.

She was here, having read a request on the Chanter’s Board and deciding it was as good a way as any to acquire some coin that she greatly needed. Besides, taking out slavers was a fine way of directing her anger; there were few things in Thedas she hated more than them.

With a heavy grunt she swung her massive axe against the locked cage’s bolt, effectively severing the rusted piece of metal.

The elf gripped the bars of the door and heaved, the barrier effectively pulling forward and opening the way. Inside, a small collection of various elves and small-framed humans –some of them children– sidle their way towards the door, all of them seemingly timid and afraid.

“You are in no more danger,” she said firmly, her voice strong and what some might find commanding, “your slavers are dead, and you are free of their chains.”

The small gathering looked at the bodies of slavers and guards, at the blood on both sides of her axe’s blade that hung on her back like a morbid pendulum. They could see the sincerity in her eyes, although her expression was relatively blank; she was telling them the truth…

They were in no danger of their slavers.

“Who…who are you, messere…?” came the voice of a young, frail looking human woman. Her hair was brown but streaked prematurely with grey, an understandable side-effect of the cruel stresses she had suffered. The elven woman glanced at the group before straightening her shoulders and sighing.

“I am Mahk.”

“Are you our master now…?” asked a small boy, an elf possibly; his ears were hidden by his hair but his features were sharp and refined, “The old masters said we were being…sold.”

The woman wrinkled her nose in fierce disgust at the suggestion, “I am not.” She said sharply, bluntly. The boy appeared frightened by her tone, but she did not change it; it would do the child no good to be coddled after experiencing events like this, “There is a tunnel entrance that will take you out to the other side of the Wounded Coast, you will see Kirkwall from them. Safe journey.”

It was not really place for thanks or gratitude, their saviour did not seem to want it; so the now-freed slaves began to file to the corridor near the back. Mahk would have otherwise escorted them, but this was only one of many catacombs among the cliffs, and she would have much more to do before the day was out.

As she looked upon the now empty cell in disgust, she felt a sting in the scars over her left eye; a reaction to magical properties. Perhaps slaver magisters…? That would be dreadfully ironic.

“Moving your slaves will not help you, wretch.” Came a dark, gravelly tone from the entrance of the room. It was Fenris who intruded on this place, and to his mistaken view, he assumed the woman was a slaver. “Your slaving days are over.”

With an ease that appeared _far_ more practiced than he’d expected, the elven woman in front of him spun on her heel and had unclipped her weapon in barely the time it took him to breathe. He had expected a rouge, or mage perhaps; but certainly not a warrior such as himself.

This new foe was roughly the same height as he, of a sturdy build for an elf, and her long, braided locks of hair seemed to begin a white colour at the roots, shading down to a deep shade of borderline black at the ends. The trio of scars on her lips looked like some sort of animal wound, and the whitened scars across her left eye portrayed that she was hardly one of the weak variety. But what bothered him most was the dark, seething scowl on her face, her eyes dilated in what appeared to be violent rage.

It was then that he realised that she was directing that gaze at his tattoos.

“Lyrium etchings.” She exhaled darkly, her voice lowering to a growl as she seemed to realise what they were; but how, he did not know, “So you are Danarius’ new little dog…Has he finally sent you to silence me then, elf?”

Fenris felt his blood run cold at the name of his former master, “What do you know of Danarius!” he roared suddenly, rushing forward with a great and mighty swing of his blade aimed directly at her.

With the reflexes that only a seasoned warrior would possess, she lifted the handle of her axe and blocked his strike with impressive force. Parrying back from the force of his strike, Fenris sidestepped and tightened his hold on the handle. “You did not answer me, slaver. What _ties_ do you have to Danarius?”

The woman’s face crunched into a fierce snarl and she gripped the handle on her war-axe to drag the weapon in a full circle. Using the momentum and her stamina, she struck upward in an attempt to fell him. Had Fenris not responded as quickly as he did and swung himself back from range, she would have without any doubt been able to cleave him in two. Retaliation was his first instinct and he did so well, swinging a leg to catch her in the side, giving cause for her to stumble back.

The elf stranger snarled at the blow, her braids swinging from the force. Her piercing eyes bore into him as she spoke in a growl, “I am no friend of your master, hunter!”

She regained footing hastily, driving the exposed butt of her axe handle into his chin in response; face set and stern. He knew bloodlust when he saw it, he’d _experienced_ it, but this was different. There was a calculation in her eyes, assessing every step he took, every twitch of his fingers against the sword; this woman had as much battle prowess as himself, or Carver, even Aveline.

She thought him here on Danarius’ behalf? What did she know of him, and _how_ did she know his former connection?!

Concluding that he would need an edge against this strange foe, he let out a war cry and let the lyrium etchings on his skin light up in adrenaline; he would crush her heart if he hand to. His eyes narrowed at her as he spoke, trying to offer some semblance of a warning before he would have to engage her again.

“I warn you, a battle with me will not end well. Run back to whoever your master and tell him your slaves are lost.”

To his surprise, the woman snorted at him, planting the heavy blade of her axe on the ground and squaring her shoulders. “I answer to no _master_ ; and I am no slaver.” The tone in her voice was unshaken, dark and sounded vaguely offended, similar to the tone he used when arguing with Hawke over the matter of mages. Warily he observed, waiting for her to make the first move; tensed like the wolf his namesake implied. To his surprise though, instead of attacking as he expected, the dual, ragged scars across her left eye began to fleck with light until they sputtered into a luminescent glow; just the same as his tattooed brands.

“…Lyrium.” He breathed in winded disbelief, feeling like all sense of the world had just been ripped out from under his feet like a dusty rug. How was it possible for another to have-?

A glow emitted from beneath the glove on her left hand, her fingers flecking with the same glow as her scars. The effect was similar to the patchy lines of glow that Anders got when possessed by Justice; it was eerie. However Fenris could not focus his thoughts on it for long, because she was finally speaking again, lifting her illuminated hand to point at him.

“You know so little of your predecessors, puppet.” She hissed, “You truly think you were the first victim of _his_ ritual. Crawl back to Danarius and tell him I am slain. I’ve no quarrel with you, pet.”

To Mahk’s surprise, her opponent relinquished control of his markings, the glow dying down to nothing. Then he raised his sword with both hands, his eyes wary but confused as he spoke in a guarded tone.

“I have no love for my former master.” He confessed, “I offer to lay down my weapon if you are willing to talk.”

He noticed the pause in her stance, the way her eyes flickered for just a moment at the suggestion, and it was a wonder he hadn’t realised before; there was as much distrust in her eyes as there was in his own. With a slow, deliberating nod she released the handle of her axe and let it drop to the stone floor with a clatter, the reinforced wood making a powerful resounding cracking sound on the surface. The rune-like glows upon her scars and her hand subsided, and she looked at her palm with a somewhat insincere quirk of the lips.

“It would seem that weapons are irrelevant to either of us, in any case.” She explained, implying the lyrium that seemed to lace both of their skin, “But you have word on my honour, I will not raise arm without reason. What do you want?”

His voice was gravelly, dark and concerned, “I wish to know; what are your ties to Danarius?”

“None.” She said monotonously, “I have no affiliation with Danarius.”  
“But you _did_?”

“I did.”

Unsurprisingly, she seem unwilling to elaborate on her own; was this how frustrating it was for Hawke to get information from _him_? Instead he tried to turn her focus from what was obviously a defensive subject.

“By what name are you known, elf?” he said sternly, trying to lace as much authority into his voice as he could.

It was clear that this woman had as little trust in her eyes as he did; they were both unknown foes to one another, each suspecting the other of being someone meant to return either of them to Danarius.

But her brows furrowed tensely and her lips parted, a reluctant response making its way from her mouth.

“I am Mahk.” She said simply, offering nothing more in the way of information.

“Fenris,” he replied just as shortly, still undeniably wary of this unusual stranger, “My name is Fenris.”

“Ah… ‘wolf’ then,” she said bluntly, taking him back a little at her knowledge of the word’s meaning. His eyebrows furrowed in suspicion.

It was easy to see that Mahk was no mere traveller, not with that great war-axe and the hardened expression; she wore chainmail armour that covered almost all of her skin, with formidable pauldrons Her hair was as white as his own at the roots and the mid-lengths, but the braids graded down into a reddened brown before blackening at the ends. He knew that his own white locks were unnatural, his black brows were proof enough of that.

All it did was leave more questions.

“So you claim no service to Danarius,” Mahk queried, the remark sounding more like a statement than an actual question; her words snapping him out of his deliberation and assesement of her, “and yet you bear the markings that were intended to be branded to _my_ skin. I find your tale difficult to believe; what proof do you have that you are not here on his behalf?”

“What do you know of the ritual?!” he spat suddenly, his temper flaring at the confusion he felt at her words. He had never seen this woman in his life, how could she know of the markings purpose, or their origin? “What intention could these marks have ever had with you?”

Her face was a vision of stoic coldness and her voice was a completely level, borderline monotonous retort, “As I said, _hospes_ , you know little of your predecessors. Now, I ask again; what proof have you that you are not here on behalf of Danarius?”

Fenris narrowed his eyes at her almost threateningly, his pupils shrinking into angry pinpricks against his green eyes, “I would think that my hate would be enough,” he responded shortly, his tone clipped and dark.

She was unperturbed by his attitude, and instead gave a slow, somewhat understanding nod at whatever conclusion she seemed to draw, “Hate… Hm. Then it would seem we have that in common. Tell me, why are you in the catacombs?”

“I came with a team, on a mission to kill the slavers here; I merely assumed you were one of them.”

Mahk furrowed her brown in thought before she leaned to pick up her weapon, which instantly had Fenris reaching for his own out of instinct. But she simply clipped it to the back of her armour and made her way past him towards the exit of the cavern, she turned and glanced over her shoulder at him.

“I still do not trust you, but should you still seek answers, find me at the Hanged Man. Let it be a warning however, that if I am crossed, I shall kill you. And I will only warn you once. Is that understood?”

The male warrior’s voice lowered to a snarl at her threat, he did not take kindly to such suggestions on his life, “Inescapably.”

She nodded and turned her head as she walked away from him, not another word or glance spared as though he was little more than one of the corpses she had slain. The feeling of distrust made him uneasy; just as she did not know his intentions, he did not know hers. Deciding it best to head back to Hawke and the others to help finish their quest, Fenris resolved that he would indeed be demanding the answers her sought from the strange, unsettling elf.

“Venhedis!” he swore, not at all looking forward to the task that lay ahead of him.


End file.
